Madagascan Sunrise

Canon EOS 7D, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 110mm, Manual: f/6.3 and 1/1000 sec, 0 EV, ISO 400, Handheld, JPEG from RAW, About 80% of Full Frame

First and foremost, Happy New Year to everyone!!! :^)

As some of you may have noted, I haven't been around on the board for a while, simple reason being that at the end of November a major part of our plans came together and I needed to turn my complete focus and attention toward that.

By way of a recap (to help you make a little more sense of this!), back in September 2010 I decided to take the plunge and set upon the path toward accomplishing a lifelong dream of becoming a professional wildlife photographer. The decision wasn't taken lightly: everything I'd read up until then led me to the conclusion that very few people with the same aspiration ever succeed in making a financial success (or even a regular source of income for that matter) from the sale of their photos alone.

In spite of this, and the fact that back in September 2010 my practical experience of photographing birds and animals amounted to less than a month and a half (two weeks on a Kenyan safari in 2006 and a few weeks here in Thailand at the beginning of 2008), I had read/studied numerous books in reference to nature photography, I'd come up with a few relatively creative ideas and plans, and what I lacked in practical experience I certainly made up for with enthusiasm!

I gave myself an 18-month period in which to achieve my primary goal; 12 months to compile a portfolio of salable images and the following 6 months would then be dedicated to actually selling my work as prints.

The initial idea was to open a fine art photo gallery, but the question was where? With this question constantly at the forefront of my mind, one day while honing my technique at my local open zoo the answer suddenly came to me: What better place to sell pictures of birds and animals than right here!

In September 2011 (amazingly enough near on exactly 12 months from the day I'd begun, making our plans right on schedule!) we finally found someone to introduce us to the directors of our local zoo. Within a few weeks we'd had a number of meetings and presented our work and ideas to the directors and other committee members, and pleased to say they were all very much taken with what they saw and heard.

The upshot of this is that we are currently halfway through the construction stage of our photo gallery, which is located in a prime spot at the entrance to their huge bird aviary (a big draw for most visitors), and all being well we should have our Grand Opening sometime next month.

Khao Kheow Open Zoo (in Chonburi Province) is one of the largest in the world, measuring 2,000 acres (800 hectares) in size, it has a large diversity of fauna from countries around the globe, and is a centre for research, conservation and learning; although they seldom exhibit them, they have one of the largest populations of Clouded Leopards and are considered to be the world's top research and breeding centre having successfully breed more than 50 cubs – in due course I'm hoping to gain special access to a number of species for photography purposes, and being that Clouded Leopards are perhaps my favourite feline you can imagine this is something I'm very excited about!

Khao Kheow Open Zoo is one of the eight major zoos owned and operated by the Zoological Parks Organization here in Thailand … yeah I know, one step at a time Ashley, one step at a time ;^)

So there you have it, a bit of a long read but at least you know what I've been up to and will hopefully understand where I'm at during future absences.

Whether our gallery will prove to be a financial success or not only time will tell, but you can be assured that we are already and will be putting our all into it. With upward of a million visitors to Khao Kheow each year (though the vast majority of course are school kids, so not exactly prime customer potential) we feel we have a good opportunity to make something good of this, and while my wife is running the gallery I will be able to work on the other ideas I have that should lead us on to greater success.

OK, better wrap this one up, but before I go – in case there's anyone still with me reading all this - LOL ;^) - the photo I'm posting today has absolutely no reference to Khao Kheow Open Zoo here in Thailand, but it's one I've been wanting to share for some time as it's one of my favourites from my Madagascar trip a few months ago.

Setting out before sunrise in search of Verreaux's Sifaka to shoot in the spiny tree forest, we would drive by some open fields that were home to some magnificent Baobab Trees (my guide told me this one was approximately 500 years old!!!) and on a couple of mornings I made numerous attempts from different angles to capture the image you see here, with the Baobab wonderfully silhouetted by the rising sun as well as some of the many Pied Crows that were flying to and from it – small as the Crows in the picture may be, methinks they're formed nicely enough in silhouette to make them acceptable in the avian gallery, hope you agree!

Critique and comments always welcome and for anyone who's had the patience to read through all of the above: Thank You ;^)

Wishing one and all the very best of things to come in 2012!!! :^)